From owner-freebsd-arch Sat Oct 13 15:43:29 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from db-cvad-1-tmp.yahoo.com (db-cvad-1-tmp.yahoo.com [216.145.48.242]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3393C37B411 for ; Sat, 13 Oct 2001 15:43:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from master.gorean.org (root@master.gorean.org [10.0.0.2]) by db-cvad-1-tmp.yahoo.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id f9DMhFs28352; Sat, 13 Oct 2001 15:43:15 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from DougB@FreeBSD.org) Received: from localhost (doug@localhost) by master.gorean.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id f9DMhYr41744; Sat, 13 Oct 2001 15:43:34 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from DougB@FreeBSD.org) X-Authentication-Warning: master.gorean.org: doug owned process doing -bs Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 15:43:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Barton X-X-Sender: doug@master.gorean.org To: Peter Wemm Cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav , Subject: Re: Generating host.conf for backward compatibility In-Reply-To: <20011013221909.80C3A3810@overcee.netplex.com.au> Message-ID: <20011013153357.R40455-100000@master.gorean.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sat, 13 Oct 2001, Peter Wemm wrote: > Dag-Erling Smorgrav wrote: > > --=-=-= > > > > In our eagerness to switch from host.conf to nsswitch.conf, we forgot > > that old binaries and libraries (COMPAT_* and tons of third-party > > software for which sources might not even be available) still expect > > to find /etc/host.conf, and may not work (correctly) if it doesn't > > exist. > > I'm a bit puzzled as to why this makes a difference. The old libc resolver > defaulted to "dns","files" if host.conf was missing. The file is and > always was optional. > > Of course, that doesn't help you if you use a NIS hosts map, or if you're > expecting /etc/hosts to override DNS lookups. I know that when I was running -current before the recent stdio changes made COMPAT4X mandatory, I used 4.x binaries without difficulty. The two most notable examples are cvsup and Yahoo! messenger. Once I installed the compat stuff those binaries stopped working. I haven't had a chance to test Dag-Erling's theory yet, since I've still got ATA issues to solve before I can move my workstation back to -current. Here's an ugly thought.... what would happen if /etc/host.conf existed, but its contents were missing or invalid? The more I think about this.... I vaguely recall futzing around with /etc/host.conf around the time of the nsswitch.conf change, and I may have left an empty file hanging around to test some rc* stuff. If that's the case, I apologize if this has been a waste of time... although it might be nice to build something into libc that says "If the contents of /etc/{host|nsswitch}.conf don't make any sense, fall back to the default." Looking for somewhere to hide... Doug -- "We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail." - George W. Bush, President of the United States September 20, 2001 Do YOU Yahoo!? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message